The State of Flex Lessons

What is Flex Lessons?

When I first created Flex Lessons back in 2020, it took me quite a while to figure out how to describe it. By this point, I had already been teaching online through Zoom for a while. I was really leaning into the idea of flexibility by offering self-scheduling and other online conveniences for students. Very quickly, my target audience narrowed mostly to working professionals and folks who had retired.

However, the ultimate flexibility came in the form of online courses along with the notion of combining this form of instruction with online lessons. In order for this to work, my courses and my private instruction needed to help students achieve the same set of goals. This ultimately led to the creation of what I would loosely call a classical piano curriculum.

The word curriculum is key to describing the experience of Flex Lessons. I have essentially chosen a comprehensive piano repertoire series and paired each level with a number of relevant exercises and other resources. It's worth mentioning that I created almost a thousand videos to support all of this. Those who study with me privately (up to a certain level) are essentially using the same curriculum as those in my membership program. This is what allows students to jump in and out of lessons at any interval.

The Success of Flex Lessons

My goal for Flex Lessons was originally centered around making it cost-neutral, as this would allow me time to iterate and develop the program further. Within a few months, I had realized that goal. My next goal was to reach the point where a modest amount of students would continue to use the program to the point where I could be financially justified in creating new content for the foreseeable future. Again, this goal has been met.

As it turns out, Flex Lessons ended up being more successful than I anticipated. More people have joined me than I was hoping for. More importantly, I have encountered plenty of evidence that this model of instruction actually works well. I am very proud to say that many of my students who joined me originally back in 2020 are playing as if they had been taking years of lessons this whole time. However, most of them have had either a handful of lessons or no lessons at all. Instead, they have been working their way through my curriculum of video lesson tutorials and uploading recordings for me to review.

Flex Lessons was born out of my interest in teaching and guiding more piano students than I could fit in a typical teaching week and fully leaning into the online mode of instruction. This comes with the added benefit of more modest teaching hours as well as avoiding redundant instruction and burnout. This is something that I feel other teachers should try, especially those that are technically inclined.

Free Courses for Beginners

Since my membership content didn’t start at the absolute beginning, I needed a way to train piano students up to the point where they could begin to follow my main curriculum. This led to the creation of a free "onboarding" type course which introduces the basics of music reading and piano technique.

The funny thing is that I was advised against making these courses free by multiple people. Instead, it was suggested that I make a small part of one of the courses free and put the rest of the content in my membership. However, looking back, I stand by my decision because it allows those who are curious a way to try out my teaching style for an extended period of time without having to risk any money. If they decide to join me as part of my paid program later on, they know exactly what to expect.

By this point, more than five thousand people have experienced my free course. Also, the reception so far has been very positive!

Content Roadmap

When I first started Flex Lessons, I was creating several videos per week. This worked well for getting the initial base of content set up quickly. However, I will admit that it burnt me out a bit and I had to take a break. At some point, I settled into a more reasonable and sustainable pace of content creation.

At this point, I have created all of the content for all levels up through Level 5 with the exception of the Performance Repertoire course. Once I finish the first set of pieces for this course, I will move on to create Level 6 content. For the record, Level 5-6 is considered right in the middle of the intermediate range.

New Lower Priced Membership

Even though my program offers a huge amount of instruction for the price, not everyone has the practice time to fully take advantage of everything that is offered. Additionally, there are those who would really appreciate a price break. To address this, I opened up a new membership tier during 2023 called Studio Essentials and renamed the already existing tier to Studio Premium.

The Studio Essentials is recommended for those who have under 30 minutes per day to practice and does not include piano etudes (such as Czerny Op. 599 and Mikrokosmos: Volume 1) or the additional performance repertoire courses. Considering that my program is aimed at working professionals, this version of the Flex Lessons curriculum is probably the best choice for the most people.

In Conclusion

Here's a quick summary of these points:

• Flex Lessons can now be thought of as a classically-focused piano curriculum.

• Flex Lessons is thriving!

• There are now TWO free courses which serve as an introduction to the overall program.

• Content up through Level 5 has been created. Level 6 is being planned.

• Studio Essentials, a lower priced membership tier, is now available.

Overall, I am very pleased with how Flex Lessons is working out for everyone involved. While the creation of this program was quite difficult over a long period of time, it also has been very flexible and rewarding in a number of ways.

I am very excited to release the next level of content as well as many other things in the future! If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them below.

Stay tuned!